Philadelphia Eagles Blog - Go Iggles

May 28, 2008

Hugh Douglas Fits Right In

It's kind of disappointing when a guy looks at the options available in his post-football commentary career and decides to take the easy way out. Today's exhibit A: Hugh Douglas.

Looks like Les was right, by the way. Not a lot of laughter coming out of Winston Justice these days. Still, you can't argue with this kind of stand-up statement:

"There's nothing I can really say,'' Justice said. "The only thing I can do is prove it [isn't true] by my actions . . . There's no need to say anything to him.

"He's not the only one who thinks that. This [season] is my chance to prove him wrong.''

The other weird thing about Justice's situation is that the guy is already in the second-to-last season of his rookie contract. Assuming Thomas and Runyan stay healthy and Justice sits another year, he'll be looking at one year as a starter before he needs a new deal.

Something to consider for all those folks who were angry the Eagles didn't draft an offensive tackle in the first round this year. As I've said many times, I still think Justice starts in this league for a long, long time, but it's a little hard when you take a guy -- any guy -- that high and then get no value out of him for the first three years because of the starters you already have in place.

On the other hand, with only a couple of notable exceptions (DeMeco Ryans, MoJoDrew, Hester), that 2006 second round actually doesn't look that good for a lot of teams right now.

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It's kind of disappointing when a guy looks at the options available in his post-football commentary career and decides to take the easy way out. Today's exhibit A: Hugh Douglas.

Looks like Les was right, by the way. Not a lot of laughter coming out of Winston Justice these days. Still, you can't argue with this kind of stand-up statement:

"There's nothing I can really say,'' Justice said. "The only thing I can do is prove it [isn't true] by my actions . . . There's no need to say anything to him.

"He's not the only one who thinks that. This [season] is my chance to prove him wrong.''

The other weird thing about Justice's situation is that the guy is already in the second-to-last season of his rookie contract. Assuming Thomas and Runyan stay healthy and Justice sits another year, he'll be looking at one year as a starter before he needs a new deal.

Something to consider for all those folks who were angry the Eagles didn't draft an offensive tackle in the first round this year. As I've said many times, I still think Justice starts in this league for a long, long time, but it's a little hard when you take a guy -- any guy -- that high and then get no value out of him for the first three years because of the starters you already have in place.

On the other hand, with only a couple of notable exceptions (DeMeco Ryans, MoJoDrew, Hester), that 2006 second round actually doesn't look that good for a lot of teams right now.